A NEW MANDATE FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

In recent times HR has been perceived as ineffective,

incompetent and costly. A need has been felt for creating a new
role and agenda to focus on the outcomes and deliverables
enrichinhg the organisations value to customers, investors and
employees.
The four ways which should be adopted by the HR are
1. It should partener with the management in executing
the strategy
2. Develop an expertise in organizing and executing
administrative work efficiently.
3. Become a medium of transferring employes concerns
to the management and develop means to increase
employee contribution.
4. It should become a change agent, shaping processes
and cultures for facilitating change in the organization.

The primary role of transforming the HR role lies on the CEO

and all line managers who have the main responsibility of
achieving the business goals. Thus the line and the HR should
form a partnership to make it focused on outcomes rather than
activities.

WHY HR MATTERS NOW MORE THAN EVER

HR can play leadership role in meeting the following
competitive challenges
Globalisation The HR must develop understanding and
skills in ways of international customers, commerece and
competition. It should facilitate the organization in
increasing its ability to learn, collaborate and to manage
diversity, complexity and ambiguity.
Profitability through growth Organizations looking to
expand by gaining new customers and developing new
products must be creative, innovative and have free flow
of information and shared learning among its employees.
The HR function can be a critical factor in developing these
features and must help the company become more market
focused more in touch with the ever changing different
needs of its customers.The managers must also need to
make sure that they make the technology a viable,
productive part of the work setting.
Intellectual Capital The HR managers must focus on
attracting, developing, and retaining individuals who can
drive the global organization that is responsive to both its
customers and the rapidly changing technological
opportunities present.

 Change HR must develop the culture of discomfort with

the status quo so thet it will detect the emerging trends
quicker than its competitors and have an ability to take
rapid decisions and be agile to seek new ways of doing
business.

HRS NEW ROLE

Becoming a partner in Strategy execution The HR managers
should act as guides to the discussion on how the company
should be organized to carry out its chosen strategy.
1. It should be responsible for defining an organisational
architecture following a suitable model.
2. It should be accountable for conducting an organizational
audit.
3. It should identify the methods to renovate the parts of the
organizational architecture that need to be upgraded.
4. HR should clearly prioritise its work as per their impact and
importance.

Becoming an Administrative Expert HR must identify

within its function the processes which can be done
better, faster and cheaper and fix them accordingly.
Improving efficiency will help build HR's credibility. The HR

managers should rethink about activities throught the

organization and thus prove their value as administrative
experts.
Becoming an Employee Champion HR managers should
be responsible for ensuring that employees are fully
engaged in a way that they feel comitted to the
organization and contribute fully in achieving the
organizational goals. They should work for orienting and
training line management about the importance of high
employee morale and ways to achieve it.
Becoming a Change Agent The HR should work for
building the organizations capacity to acquire and gain
from change. The change initiatives focused on creating
high performance teams, reducing innovation cycle time
and technology implementation should be defined,
developed and delivered in a time bound manner. It
should as change agent replace employee resistance to
change with resolve, planning with results and fear with
excitement.

To bring about the new culture, HR should

define and clarify the concept of culture change
articulate the need for change for business success

 define a process for assesing the current culture, the new

culture and the gap
identify the alternative approaches to create culture change

The changes required for the line management

The activities required by the line / senior management to
facilitate the HR management become outcome focused are
Communicate the importance of soft skills to the
organoization
Explicitly define the deliverables and accountability of Hrs
Invest in innovative HR practices
Upgrade HR professionals in terms of quality by recruiting
best people.

REVIEW
A New Mandate for Human Resources by David Ulrich focuses
on providing a roadmap for revitalizing the much loathed HR
function which is universally perceived as an ineffective and
ineffective cost centre. In a very simple language and
structured way the author tells how the function should
transform from the activity based to outcome based. David
articulates why HR should be aligned with the organization's
goals and objectives and why it should be a part of the
organization's strategy execution and have a leading role as a
change agent. The article also provides a prescription for the
senior management to push the HR department in acquiring
the new role of a strategy implementation partner and change
agency. One things it lacks in is the quantity of relevant
anecdotal examples. Though it has some very important
refrences to current HR practices in leading organisation but
having them more often and for more of points could have
increased their clarity and perceived practicality. All in all it is a
seminal article providing a guide for present day management
to survive in the global and competetive environment
leveraging the HR function.